The sky had grown dark and the diamonds hung from their steel poles, reflecting beacons of light to the ground along the slight darkness of evening. Above, was a stark limbed sky with a pale blue sweeping steadily, and wildly across it, all the way to the horizon. There was silence, all except the steady clap of boots stamping against the dark pavement. She looked up, carefully washing the steady color of the sky with her ice water eyes.

The silence turned crude as she stared, curious about the way the horizon looked so huge against its sphered surface, how much larger it looked with the evening color splashed across it. Almost as if it were a glass dome, as if she were trapped in a snow globe. Her hand absently reached for the door handle, and she forgot about the ambient sky. It wasn't relevant to what had to be done. What had to be done was the steady process of going home.

But as she slipped into the low seat, placing her hands on the wheel, she found her clear water eyes drawn to the way that night sky formed through the thin glass of the windshield. Starless because of the many lights below, so the stars left, figuring their job was done. She cleared her head once more and her gaze fell to the faceless parking lot, littered with the cars and memories of yesterday. They were like fallen dreams, come to only be lit by the dim lighting of a lamppost. Turned an orange tint by the shallow light they provided.

Then she moved the car, pressing the accelerator and feeling the beast lurch from where it had lay still and silent. And like a long lost dream, the car moved on as well. She passed an abandoned shopping cart, grey and lifeless against the bland backdrop it had. Though the cart had an ominous feel as well, as if it were the last of the human that once wheeled it across the long tiled sea of the store. Where was the deserter now? The deserter who left their cart to decay in the chilled air of that starless night? Where were they now?

She found herself ignoring the cart as she sped off into the claustrophobic land of tangled highways and neon traffic lights, a place with the great many rolling beasts of human dreams and hopes, all shoved together in great lines of fate, all crowded together into suburban legends. There was something strange about this world though, where all kinds seemed to bundle together and abide by the rules without worry. It was almost a surreal part of America. With all of its lights and flashes synchronized into headlights and timing, all a speed of frustration and calm. But really, this was the only reality of America, the only place it cared to kick in like an overused engine. She reached forward through her dread and turned on the radio.

It was a song that matched this surreal world to a gravely perfect measure, tentatively crawling along with the steady change of red to green, green to yellow. One that pursued that cloudless sky as it steadily grew darker. She found herself looking back to it, that sky. There was now one swathe of lined clouds, transformed into a molding grey shape that traveled along the rim of the yellow tinged horizon. The rest of the sky was a dark midnight curtain, the glowing claw of the moon being the only performer that night.

She pressed forward through lanes with transferring arrows of directions and searched the air with the compressed headlight of the car which bounced over the shining metal of other cars and flowed wordlessly over them. The song played on, in its own psychedelic manner of which it summed up the night in one beautiful motion.

To the sides of the road, were buildings that were stunted in growth, holding signs in their doors. There was a string of malls with banners in their clear water windows, holding brilliant red words of sales and deals to come. Of scams and cheats to follow. Lightened signs hung from balconies and were lit with the dull purpose of advertisement, humane in all ways.

She drove on. Her own beast of the underworld shifting obediently at her feet and drifted over the tar in a basic fashion. The road swerved along with the traffic lights, flowed like a river along this surreal reality. She thought back to her childhood, of the balloons and gifts promised. Happy birthday, happy birthday. Of her parents who just wanted the simple pleasure of silence and a serene world rather then the one they had been thrown into. She followed in their footsteps like a good little girl, finding her own small hole for her own perception of reality to fit through. Away from this barren place of street lamps and sidewalks.

Of people and deceptions. She stopped the monstrous thing beneath her feet, lawfully obeying the wish of the red light and the four-way intersection laying like a gap in this metal filled space. And just like that, there was a rush of wheels and chrome rushing forth across the bleak wasteland of pure sweat and blood. She waited patiently as the song ended and an announcer came back to listlessly put things back into shape. She only half listened, finding herself distracted by the swing of cars in the near distance, hers would join them in the near future. That is when the light switched from its illegal red back to the safety of green. She waited patiently in this tarred over wilderness, as a shopkeeper in the mall behind her began to take down the banners of lies, as another lit the lights of a name.

The steady pour of vehicles stopped and the light turned to green. She was at the head of this line, prepare to go, pressing down on the accelerator one last time, driving across the to the middle of the wasteland of tar, prepared to turn her way, catching the faintest glimpse of the car running the light opposite her, not moving much as it came at a barreling speed toward her.

There was the sound of grinding metal, the squeal of brakes set too late. The windshield caved in on her, sending rivets of glass reflecting that blueish sky as it quickly went darker. She felt alone in this shadowy landscape of surreal reality. The beast refused to move, though she no longer had the strength to command it. Headlights were fading fast along with the LED sign across the street marked with its neon pixels, glowing efficiently through the dark lighting.

The glowing claw of the moon continued to glow in this surreal reality.

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